And they fell in love
by weirdnessunleashed
Summary: Lily Evans was having a bad day. Or was she?


Lily Evans was having a bad day. She had slept badly, thanks to the nightmares in which Petunia had made repeated appearnces calling her a 'freak' and telling her why she wasn't 'normal' like others. She had gone down for breakfast, only to have a jar of pumpkin juice splashed on her uniform by somebody's owl. _And_ she still hadn't started studying for her exams.

Now, in Potions, she was staring down at the single letter on the corner of the parchment in disbelief.

_No way._

She glanced down at the parchment again. This couldn't be. She, Lily Evans, couldn't have scored only an A on her Potions essay.

She gloomily watched Slughorn hand out the other pieces of homework. James Potter and Sirius Black looked at each other across their cauldrons, giving the thumbs-up. Lily winced. She couldn't bear the thought of Potter being so happy over his mark when she was so much annoyed with herself for not performing better.

Slughorn divided them were into groups of four. Just her luck, she and Margaret, a fellow ravenclaw, were paired with Pettigrew and James. Already having had a rocky start to the day, she met James's self-satisfied lopsided grin with cold, unsmiling eyes. He frowned a little, and glanced at the board for instructions. As she cut up her roots, she couldn't help but notice that Potter seemed to be glancing in her direction more often than usual, a concerned look in his eyes.

_Maybe the guy wasn't so bad, after all. _She shook her head. _What was she thinking?_

"Do you need any help with that?", asked Margaret.

As Lily opened her mouth to reply, she glanced at her friend, and realized that she wasn't talking to her. She was looking into Potter's eyes as if she wanted to read his every thought.

"I'm just unscrewing the cork, Marge", he replied, indicating the bottle of salamander blood, knowing full well that the girl was taken with him. Then again, who wasn't?

_Lily Evans_, said a tiny voice in his head.

Except her. And she just happens to be the only girl I'm interested in, he thought, looking at her. She wasn't herself today. Normally, she would've tried to insult him atleast 5 times by now. She was strangely subdued, and he couldn't bear to see her that way.

_Only if I could ask her what the matter was._ The idea itself was laughable. She'ld probably give him a that's-none-of-your-business stare and walk away with her friend. _Which would be a good thing._ For the past 15 minutes, as he worked, that Ravenclaw girl was trying to catch his eye, offering him help with everything from uncorking a bottle to stirring the cauldron. _Man, she was irritating._

Lily Evans was irritated. She was the only one working in this corner. James Potter seemed to have made up his mind that he had done his part when he added the 2 tablespoons of salamander blood. All Margaret seemed to want to do was stare at Potter night and day for the rest of her life. For some reason, that irritated her more. And Pettigrew, she saw, already had drooping eyelids.

All of a sudden, she didn't care anymore. The day had started off on a bad note, and nothing could change that. She scooped up all the ingredients, dumped them in the cauldron, and started stirring feverishly, splashing potion noisily on the sides of the cauldron. That brought all three passive onlookers back to earth in an instant. She looked at all of them, caught James Potter's eye, and suddenly felt a lump in her throat.

She had imagined it. That was definitely NOT a look of concern in his eyes.

He was right. Something was bothering her. And he couldn't, for the life of him figure out what. All he wanted to do was look into her eyes and tell her that whatever the matter, eveything was going to be fine.

But that, he knew, was nothing more than impossible.

As they filed out of class, (Slughorn had been called away on an urgent meeting at the Staffroom; otherwise Lily's irritation at the day's events would have taken a turn for the worse after he had marked the potion she had managed to, er, not create), Lily looked back from the bottom of the staircase. He was looking at her, and this time she did not mistake the look of genuine concern in his brown eyes. She felt something change within her.

It was at this moment that she realized, James Potter was not the only one in love.

He never forgot the day those green eyes sought his out from the crowd, giving him the silent promise of trust.

And she never again regretted having scored that A.


End file.
